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You are here: Home / Article Blogging / Blogging: Categories Vs. Tags

Blogging: Categories Vs. Tags

February 23, 2009 By Lisa Angelettie 14 Comments

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If I could do it all over again, I would have questioned this before I started setting up my blogs. Yet here I am — well into my business and still wondering — What is the deal with categories versus tags on blogs? What purpose does each serve? Which one is better? Do we need to use both?

After a bit of research reading other articles on this topic and another reflective look at my own blogs — these are some of the answers that I have found.

1. First we need to talk about link juice. If you are into search engine optimization (SEO) at all, then you understand that if you have a lot of outgoing links on your homepage, essentially you are losing your ‘link juice’. That’s why there are wordpress plugins or themes (such as thesis) which permit you to enable a “no follow” rule on links that may be pointing to your archives or other internal pages.

When you have a lot of these internal links on your home page, it begins to dilute the importance of all the other links you may have on the page as well. Thus limiting the overall importance of your site — which means lower results in the search engines. So having said all of that (whew!), that’s why it is better to be more selective about your category and tags so as to not bog down your site with tons of internal links.

So what’s the solution? We all need to take a look at our blogs and make a decision. We want to direct readers to all of our informative content, keep them on the site, but we also want to construct our blogs in a way that attracts a steady stream of organic traffic from the search engines. So the answer is – to keep it simple.

2. Let’s talk about categories. While many bloggers use categories in many different ways, it’s safe to say that most people use categories as an overall filing system for your blog’s content. If you write articles about fruit on your site, then you may have categories for apples, peaches, pears, strawberries, and oranges.

When you want to talk about California oranges vs. Florida oranges, that’s when bloggers take two different approaches. Some will create sub-categories under ‘oranges’, one for Florida and one for California.

3. Then other bloggers will create tags. You can write an article under the category of “oranges” and then tag it with the words Florida or California. When you use tags on your blog, it gives you the option of creating a “tag cloud” that you can put in your sidebar. Some blog readers find tag clouds to be “clutter”. Other blog readers (like myself) actually find tag clouds useful so that you can go directly to the topic that you are interested in. For some reason I zone out on category lists in sidebars.

So which should you choose? Well, from what I can see, the real question to ask yourself is if your content is organized simply, and if your readers can access the content they want to with one click of a mouse. Apparently, whether you use categories or tags to achieve this doesn’t matter to your readers nor the search engines.

Bottom line–create the structure that makes the most sense to you. Just keep it simple. I had to go back into this site and eliminate tons of tags. I had the habit of writing an article and throwing on a couple of tags. Bad idea. Next thing I knew, I had a zillion tags. So it did start to look like a lot of clutter.

Another point about this is that if you have a ton of categories and tags on your blog, you may want to revisit your site’s topic. The key to successfully attracting and keeping subscribers to your content is to provide very specific and focused information in your niche. If you sell fruit but wrote and tagged an article on chicken, you may not really be optimally serving your readers.

Or you could just not be using your categories and tags effectively. Remember to try your best to categorize your content under categories/tags you have already created and not create new one after new one — because you don’t take the time to place your article(s) under the already established category/tag.

Categories Vs. Tags? Well I like to use a mixture of both. Categories as the main topics and tags as sub-topics of those categories; but the best answer is to create your category/tag structure in the way that you use other people’s blogs AND in the way that makes sense for your readers.

How do you use categories and tags on your blog?

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Filed Under: Article Blogging, Article Marketing Tagged With: Link Building

Comments

  1. Martin Malden says

    February 24, 2009 at 2:38 am

    Hi Lisa,

    Strange – I just had a similar epiphany, and been through the same exercise of getting rid of useless tags, and linking articles together more effectively!

    Categories and tags are one of those questions that people keep asking about – must be a business opportunity in there somewhere!

    I like the way you’ve used Thesis.

    Cheers,

    Martin.

    Martin Maldens last blog post..Variable Width Websites: Another One Converted

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      February 24, 2009 at 3:07 am

      Hey Martin,
      I tell ‘ya, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my blog. Same thing with switching to thesis from revolution. Everything is a little lighter and simpler which I thinks makes all the difference for usability and then of course SEO curb appeal. Thanks for dropping by.
      Lisa

      Reply
  2. Martin Malden says

    February 23, 2009 at 10:38 pm

    Hi Lisa,

    Strange – I just had a similar epiphany, and been through the same exercise of getting rid of useless tags, and linking articles together more effectively!

    Categories and tags are one of those questions that people keep asking about – must be a business opportunity in there somewhere!

    I like the way you’ve used Thesis.

    Cheers,

    Martin.

    Martin Maldens last blog post..Variable Width Websites: Another One Converted

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      February 23, 2009 at 11:07 pm

      Hey Martin,
      I tell ‘ya, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my blog. Same thing with switching to thesis from revolution. Everything is a little lighter and simpler which I thinks makes all the difference for usability and then of course SEO curb appeal. Thanks for dropping by.
      Lisa

      Reply
  3. Flo says

    June 25, 2009 at 2:24 am

    Thanks, Lisa. Being new to blogging (and self-taught) I was confused about categories and tags, also. This can be a little daunting to non-techie folk. Now, I will go and clean up my blog.

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      June 25, 2009 at 3:36 am

      It was a beast cleaning up the tags at first – but i love that I did it. It was worth the time. My content ranks much better in the natural search results. Much success with it Flo.

      Reply
  4. Flo says

    June 24, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    Thanks, Lisa. Being new to blogging (and self-taught) I was confused about categories and tags, also. This can be a little daunting to non-techie folk. Now, I will go and clean up my blog.

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      June 24, 2009 at 11:36 pm

      It was a beast cleaning up the tags at first – but i love that I did it. It was worth the time. My content ranks much better in the natural search results. Much success with it Flo.

      Reply
  5. Perky Tobin says

    July 7, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    Wow, Lisa! What Gems! I love the information and how you stick to the topic. Many good lessons for me! How to unscramble the thoughts using the series articles (new term but you know what I mean). I’ll be reading more and happy to have you as a friend! I’ll be writing more meaningfully from now on! God Bless! Thank you!

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      July 7, 2009 at 4:28 pm

      Thanks so much Perky! Love that name – it fits how you write:-) I look forward to seeing your articles. I’ll look out for them on Twitter. My user name is: @girlshrink

      Reply
  6. Perky Tobin says

    July 7, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    Wow, Lisa! What Gems! I love the information and how you stick to the topic. Many good lessons for me! How to unscramble the thoughts using the series articles (new term but you know what I mean). I’ll be reading more and happy to have you as a friend! I’ll be writing more meaningfully from now on! God Bless! Thank you!

    Reply
    • Lisa Angelettie says

      July 7, 2009 at 12:28 pm

      Thanks so much Perky! Love that name – it fits how you write:-) I look forward to seeing your articles. I’ll look out for them on Twitter. My user name is: @girlshrink

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Article Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » How Do You Use Your Blog’s Categories and Tags? says:
    February 23, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    […] – I think I figured it out and wanted to share with you my take on using categories vs. tags on your blog. Make sure to leave a comment:-) Enjoy! Share and […]

    Reply
  2. Articles about WordPress Plugins as of February 24, 2009 | The Lessnau Lounge says:
    February 24, 2009 at 11:43 am

    […] […]

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